Recommended by Larry Rinkel

The twist at the end in this clever little monologue tells us that Sylvia with her cats is just as selfish as Mike with his dog. But what did she do with the leftovers? and what other state in the U.S. has such dismal connotations as New Jersey?

Charming and clever, down to the character names. Very interesting to see how a story can be accomplished in one minute using purely physical interaction without dialogue, as a piece of theater that skirts the line between mime and even ballet.

Good lord, to be stuck forever in a cramped little boat with someone you can't stand. What are you to do? It's the rhythms of Gacinski's dialogue above all that make this piece work, as his two clowns, reminiscent of Didi and Gogo, spar with each other incessantly because there's nothing else to do. Or is there? I'm not giving away the ending to this taut, nihilistic piece.

Ah, the world of work. Stifling closeness in cubicles, suspicion, game-playing, affairs, and twists you never expected. A clever little comedy that would be still relevant even if Harriet Tubman takes her place on the $20.

When is murder not murder? When is an act of mercy killing also an act of revenge? Conlon uses the device of getting two of his characters off-stage - the mother and wife - so that the wife's friend and self-appointed executioner is alone with the son/husband at precisely the moment he awakens from a coma. While one can see the playwright's hand at work here, the dialogue and conflicts he sets up are so powerful that the coincidence registers more as poetic justice than as contrivance. A very strong, taut short drama.

So many of us have problems with food (moi included). We watch this monologue with a kind of fascinated horror as the performer goes through literally 38 large cookies in under 10 minutes, giving entirely contradictory reasons for the bingeing but appearing to leave the main underlying reasons unsaid. Please do not cast an actor with diabetes in the role.

It's the dialogue above all, with its constant twists and turns, that makes this play about an accidental meeting between two ex-girlfriends in an airport work. A lot of bitterness, a lot of past love, a lot left unsaid. At the end, despite Ryan's hope for reconciliation, Becca makes it clear there is no future for these two. Very concise, well-crafted 10-minute play.

A disturbing, enigmatic play concentrating on intense sibling rivalry over a stolen lover and stolen objects. Each sister finds a way to express her jealousy and love-hate towards the other by "borrowing" things she has no intention of giving back. And there's one, creepy, totally unexplained object that I won't reveal, but which suggests a boundary beyond which the play itself doesn't cross.

A clever send-up on what will be all too familiar to playwrights and actors, that is the foibles of putting a play together with prima donna actors and a script that keeps changing without the cast being all up to speed on it.

A light as a feather comic exploration of a date where two people meet online, and then meet for real. Terrific dialogue.